CONFIDENTIAL
9. The accusation was not totally out of place, for no Cabinet Minister in the present British Government had visited Malaysia and a bout of national amnesia about this part of the world seemed to affect us after our troops were withdrawn. The Malaysians are very mindful of ASEAN solidarity and usually too gentlemanly to admit to jealousy of Singapore, but the Concorde deal between BA and SIA had, they thought, been done behind their back, and the widespread advertising of supersonic flights a boastful poster remained in the travel agents outside the Deputy Prime Minister's office for many months! rankled and complicated things. Nonetheless, the Cabinet's decision on Concorde would not have been taken if they had not supposed that we had shown some neglect of them, which they found irritating in view of our £2 billion investment, our remittances of some £250 million a year to the United Kingdom and the presence of 15,000 Malaysian students in the United Kingdom. Feelings ran high and were inflamed by garbled stories that British officials had talked of "kicking the Malaysians in the teeth and at a later stage that someone had called the Malaysian officials negotiating "petty bastards".
10. BA were naturally keen, having announced the inaugural flight for December 1977, that Concorde should fly and BA's Director of Concorde came to Kuala Lumpur. His actions did not secure or facilitate approval and a bold but unwise attempt to barge into the Prime Minister's house in the late evening to put BA's case was resented. Another chance factor gave an additional twist. An arrangement for Concorde to fly over Indonesian airspace for 3 flights was hurriedly
/patched
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